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The story of Dr. Rory Thompson sparked a lot of action toward the
elimination of domestic violence. In 1983 (just 11 years before The Hobart
Women’s Shelter open) ex CSRIO scientist Rory Thompson killed his wife. He
claimed that he killed her after they had been separated, for fear that she
would steal the children. During his sentence he pleaded not guilty on ground
of insanity, and looking at what he did to kill her; it would be easy to say
that he was insane.

During the night, he drove over to her house, disguised, and snuck
in. With him he had taken a club made for a leg of a table, a meat clever and a
hacksaw. The club was used to kill his wife, and then to dispose of her body he
used the meat clever and hacksaw. He cut her into 91 small pieces and flushed
her down the toilet. Almost all of her was now in the sewers; however he did
bury her head. Flushing her down the toilet may have seemed like a fool-proof
way of secretly discarding her body, however in 1983 her body parts were found
in the sewage processing plant in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.

He was after all found not guilty, and was sentenced to take part
in mental treatment in a prison hospital. He appealed many times to be
released, all of which the court agreed to, but the government turned down.

On the day that he tried to escape in 1999, once he was
re-captured he hung himself in his cell.